In March of 2005, we received this note from Mary Hawley:
Hi, I am on the board of trustees at the Belmond United Methodist Church in Belmond Iowa. I am also a master gardener and interested in landscaping around a new addition at our church. I came across your name during a search for landscape design at churches. Was wondering if you could help direct me to information on this subject. I am hoping to put in a meditation area and would love to make it a bible garden (with plants mentioned in the bible) but the board wants it low maintenance.
Thanks
Mary Hawley

In May we received this update:
Greetings from Belmond. Our garden is progressing slowly as we had 3 inches of rain last week, the night before we were to start trenching for the stones. I'm anxious to get the plants in and the signage up. I was wondering if you have your signs on a database that you could email me. I want to do my own signs but love the way you have them also. I would be willing to pay for a copy. Was thinking it would be easier for me to just cut and paste what I wanted to use from your database as many of our plants will be different and also the ones that we have that you don't will look consistent. Thanks again for all your help. Hopefully I'll be able to send you pictures soon of the "finished" product.

God Bless
Mary

Finally on June 6th we received a note with these photos!
Greetings from Belmond!!
It's been quite a spring, but after a month of rain we were finally able to get started on Memorial Day. I'm sending a pic of what it looked like Monday and how it looked yesterday.
Our open house is Sunday for the new addition and we are ready!!
I have more plants coming from Canada but they only ship on Mondays and since last Monday was a holiday they will ship next week. They are also 2 weeks behind because of the crazy spring weather. I'll send updates if you want after they are in. I wish we had a website to share with you, maybe that could be my winter project. Anyway, thanks so much for all you help, we have had nothing but great reviews so far. (any ideas on how to disguise the cooling unit? )

God Bless
Mary Hawley

Imagine this for three months!!